Sunni Arab Satellite TV Station's Chairman, 10 Others Killed in Attack

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Gunmen stormed the headquarters of a new Sunni Arab satellite television station yesterday, killing the board chairman and 10 others, the second attack on an Iraqi station in the capital in as many weeks.

The people killed in the brazen morning assault were among at least 21 people who died in attacks that centered on Baghdad, including a suicide bomber who slammed into a police patrol on his motorcycle and a coordinated double bombing of a central square.

After the attack, blood stained the polished floors of the Shaabiya satellite television station building, which housed its studio and offices, and bullet casings lay scattered around.

The station was founded in July and was working around the clock to get ready to start broadcasting after the end of Ramadan in about two weeks, so the office was full of people even though the attack came at 7 a.m., executive director Hassan Kamil said. He added that some of those killed had been sleeping.

An unknown number of gunmen, some wearing police clothes, drove up to the building and then stormed inside and "eliminated most of those present," Mr. Kamil said.

Mr. Kamil said he could not even speculate on who may have been behind the attack.

"We have good relations with all political and religious parties and groups, with the Sunnis and the Shiites, and we are keen to maintain such a balance," he said in a telephone interview.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdel-Karim Khalaf blamed the attack on "a gang of criminals."

Mr. Kamil said that even though there was evidence some 100 shots were fired, nobody heard the gunfire, and no windows were damaged, indicating that the attackers may have used silenced pistols and killed their victims at close range.

The head of the station's board of directors Abdul-Raheem Nasrallah was killed, along with station technicians and two guards, Mr. Kamil said.

He said the station still plans to start broadcasting as scheduled.

It was the second attack on a television station in the capital this month.

On October 1, a parked car bomb blew up outside the local al-Rafidain TV station. The blast killed two pedestrians and wounded five station employees, while blowing out windows of the building and damaging the offices inside.

In another attack on an Iraqi journalist, police said the family of a 29-year-old Kurdish radio reporter who was abducted a week ago had identified his body in the Baghdad morgue.

Azad Mohammed Hussein was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen while on his way to Dar al-Salam radio headquarters in the capital's Shaab neighborhood. His body was turned into the morgue Tuesday and identified by his family on Wednesday, police Captain Ali al-Obaidi said.

The American command said yesterday that one American soldier was killed and two injured in violence in northern Iraq on Wednesday. The three soldiers were assigned to the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, but no further details were released.

The soldier's death brings the total number of American troops who have died in October in Iraq to 41.

In other violence in the capital, a synchronized bomb attack killed five and wounded 11 others, police Lieutenant Bilal Ali Majid said.First a car bomb parked in central Baghdad's Qurtaba Square exploded, followed by a second device on the roadside nearby, Mr. Majid said. One policeman was among the dead.

Insurgents are making increasing use of the tactic of detonating one bomb to draw attention to a spot, then a second to cause high casualties among onlookers and rescue workers.

In a similar attack, a bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in the Qahira neighborhood of northeastern Baghdad. Two minutes later another bomb exploded nearby, wounding four people who had gathered at the site of the first explosion, police First Lieutenant Ahmed Mohammed Ali said.